Silence
by fuckingnngddd
Summary: Not really sure, just a drabble life through Draco's eyes.


Some of us become heroes; some of us spend our entire lifetime playing the role of the sidewalk witness.

There is a deep place inside me that once wanted to be the hero, that wanted to save the world and have the better morals, the ones everyone wanted to follow, the one that children looked up to, but I burned it the day a certain boy refused my extended hand of friendship like it was something dirty, and I vowed that day to fade into the background and never be heard of again, but fate would not have it so.

I've never understood, even to this day, what gives us the right to decide who is good and who is bad and upon asking my father as a child, I was told that no one gives us the right, we take it. It never sounded like a good enough reason to me, so I stacked it away into that list of things my father would say that I would never fully agree with but nod all the same.

I spent my school years in a mind numbing blur, acting out where I was supposed to and keeping to myself in the times I had to myself, boasting when in company of things that felt so alien and irrelevant to me, but seemed to impress my peers. I never considered them my friends, none of them knew me well enough and I myself can't remember ever liking someone enough to make the effort.

Pansy played what she considered her part, never leaving my side as the dutiful lover, regardless of whether I acknowledged her existence or not; Crabbe and Goyle were always faithful, though I'm aware even to this day that had I been more kind, they could've blossomed into respectable wizards with their own opinions on everything.

My role in my father's life emerged in sixth year, when he has me marked and I was given a role that was obvious to all I was not qualified to uphold. A stupid mistake on my father's part and I was handed a mission that took me whole and crushed me under its weight. I had planned to spend my life in the shadows, and now the spotlight burned my eyes and I found myself having to plan the murder of a man much wiser, much older and much more experienced in life than me. I knew if I asked, he would take my burden, hide me, do whatever it took to make sure that I never crossed paths with the other side again but I didn't. I prevailed, somewhat, and was rewarded with my life. A reward I believed so badly that I could have done without, because life truly had no meaning for me, I could not imagine spending my days in a home where torture was the order of the day and forced laughter was expected at every sentence uttered.

There were always ways out, and I knew I had the strength to take them. I would have, had I not seen my mother's eyes grow big and dark in fear as the Dark Lord Crucioed her distant family and people she used to know, his cackle more pronounced than their anguished screams and her fingers turning whiter the harder she clutched at the arm rest. I stayed for her, because I didn't have to search deep to know that Father would never bring her the comfort she needed. He was ruthless and selfish, and nothing could induce pity in him. Not even for his wife.

Then it was too late; I had been branded as one of the bad men and gotten sucked into the story that would never get told and I prayed, every single day I would pray that my death would be clean and quick. Perhaps a stray hex or a trip into one of the halls in the Manor that weren't safe for anyone, not even the kin; a death no one would think of twice, a death no one wanted to spend too much time on. I wanted out, but I was very specific, even then. With every thought of death came the solid realization that my mother would have to die before me, because I knew I didn't have it in me to leave her with those men that breathed like hungry wolves around her, unprotected as she was by my Father.

Alas, none of that was be either. Life never gave me what I asked for. I was back at Hogwarts for the blink of an eye, standing by my mother's side, her sweaty hand squeezing my cold one, watching in anticipation as chaos erupted all around us. I couldn't tell you how it became that I was inside the castle, grabbing Crabbe and Goyle and following Potter. I don't remember, even to this day, what made my let go of my mother's hand and run after him. I can't even recall the events as precisely as I can some others; all that stands out, vivid and loud in my memory, is the heat crawling over my skin, licking in places I didn't know I could feel heat, and the pathetic sounds Goyle made after Crabbe was engulfed by the fire monster of his own creation, and then Weasley was yelling to Potter and as Potter came towards me with a hand outstretched, I very distinctly remember having the flashback of our first day of Hogwarts, and every instinct in me told me to refuse his as he had refused mine, but my hand moved before I could stop myself and I felt him keep hold of my fingers as we sped out of the room.

I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now but Potter saved me, even though I had already begun embracing the heat and was ready to welcome the blackness of death, and he flew me out and when all was said and done, when he has killed the Dark Lord and I was back beside my mother, being smothered with the hugs and sobs I was sure I would never have again, I walked up to him. He had his back toward me, standing at the gates of the castle and looking out, and his face was covered in soot and I knew that if he turned around his face would be covered with tear tracks. In that moment, where I knew he couldn't see me, I got the first urge I had ever gotten, and all I wanted was to touch his shoulder and have him weep into my arms. Instead I took a step back, into the rubble and the shadow, and watched as the last ray of sunshine tasted and traced his jaw, and the wind caressed his hair. I watched, and wished I was a part of the elements so I could constantly be around him.

He turned and, not seeing me, walked towards his friends; those whose comfort he would welcome graciously and those who needed his warm body for their own comfort.

That one moment was all I had to live on, if I had ever lived. Life after the war was much like life before it, with the exception of my Father being in Azkaban and Pansy no longer being able to fulfill the role of being by my side. I would have gone the same way as my Father, had Potter not intervened. I never understood that either; I had never been one to appeal to his better nature, so all that he did he did by his own will. I couldn't complain. I was given the choice of a prison with inmates I couldn't choose, and a prison where my mother could choose them for me.

Greengrass was chosen to take the place of Pansy, and those first few months were when I found myself missing Pansy the most. Where she had understood my nature and resolve to live life as quietly as possible, Greengrass took as a personal affront to herself. It seemed like I would have to play my part as the loving, diligent husband, something I had never even considered because a future where I survived was a future where Pansy was with me. But all that ended as soon as she had an heir, and found someone more willing to give her lingering touches and whisper sweet nothings into her hair as she played her domestic role. I knew I never wanted to be to my child what my father was to me, so I kept it and raised it with Mother.


End file.
